


Move Counting

by Upstarsfromreality



Category: Elementary (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 13:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16198262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upstarsfromreality/pseuds/Upstarsfromreality
Summary: Games in a long standing series have consequences.





	Move Counting

**Author's Note:**

> Something's been bothering me about Sherlock's treatment of Joan in 6x02 and 6x04. This is half of his attempt to fix it. Set a month or 6 weeks after 6x08, so spoilers.

Eugene glances at the clock and decides there's no time for another game. As he does so, he realizes with a shock that both games went to 52 moves. Ever since Sherlock told him two years ago that they averaged 46 moves, Eugene joined him in keeping track, silently monitoring both of their healths in black and white squares.

46 at baseline. 21, 33 and 28 and 19 moves happened the day Sherlock correctly accused Eugene of self-medicating his way through the days after the bombing. The games the week after Eugene came back, free of sedatives but still distracted by every little thing thanks to his PTSD, had gone to 36, 37, and 40 moves. Eugene could still taste the triumph the day he fought his way back to 46. The average rested there, comforting in its stability, for a year and a half and then started to climb alarmingly. 

Two days before Sherlock lay down on Eugene's table, it had taken him 56 moves to beat Eugene. Two weeks later, a 61-move match would have had Eugene crowing with excitement if he weren't so worried about his friend. Sherlock had merely glanced at him, read the concern in his eyes, and said, "Post concussion syndrome. I'm working on it," before swearing him to secrecy where the NYPD was concerned. He wasn't working on it, of course. Sherlock worked too hard to work on anything whose main cure was relaxation. Two weeks after that, a severed head landed on Eugene's table, devoid of location information because Sherlock couldn't remember where it came from. The game after that was a joyless, grinding 70 moves and then Sherlock was gone, vanished into guilt over an escaped serial killer and into the rest his brain needed.

They had played twice before this session since Sherlock got back, the average resting at its comfortable 46-move point. 52 moves once would be within the standard deviation, might easily mean nothing. Even twice in a row, 52 moves might mean preoccupation rather than disease. Eugene slowly puts away the peices, wondering whether preoccupation falls within the boundaries he and Sherlock have built for each other. Apparently it does, because Sherlock has a file and a question: "Hawes, would you mind taking a look at something for me? I'd just like to know whether a tox screen could have been done then. Also, given the fact that technology keeps getting better while the state of the remains gets worse, whether one could be done now."

"One of your cold cases?"

"Yes, no, not exactly a cold case since I'm almost sure it was accidental death. I just want to know what kind of accident. Her body is in London, though, so the actual work would need to happen over there next time I go. I would appreciate your opinion on whether an exhumation is even worth doing, when you've got a moment free."

The switch from "the remains" to "her body" has Eugene opening the file without waiting for a free moment. "May Holmes nee Verner," he reads aloud off the top line, "date of death 13 April 1981, female age 35." He has to ask "Was she family?"

"My mother, yes. Apartment fire from a water heater, apparently. I started looking into that a while ago when I realized how long I hadn't looked. Didn't really suspect foul play; I just wanted to know whether I'd been lied to. She was an addict like me, so I wondered if it were an OD. Even worse, I wondered if it were a real apartment fire, caused by one of her candles for cooking heroin. She might not have been the only person who died. So I started looking. What I've seen so far indicates what I heard was true. She died of smoke inhalation in a fire caused by a water heater."

Not exactly a cold case. More like exactly not a cold case. Eugene knows better than to say that aloud,  sticking with, "So why do you want me to look if you're convinced?" 

"Because the water heater, and all the other deaths, were at the other end of the building from her flat. Everyone near her heard the alarms and got out."

"So you think she was unconscious from the heroin and unable to escape. Are you sure you want to know the answer? There's a difference between finding legal cause of death and digging through your personal history on a whim."

"It would be evidence, Hawes. I am a detective and a real detective never ignores evidence."

"You don't actually have to hurt yourself in order to uphold a standard you made up anyway."

"It is a standard to which I have held others."

Eugene knows that "others" in this context means Joan. Actually it means Joan in most contexts where Sherlock is concerned. "You realize you could let up on her instead of being harder on yourself, right?" 

"I did apologize, but I don't think I hurt her. One part of her response to what she found seems to make her very happy indeed. Anyway, considering my own hypocrisy on the point convinced me that I do want to learn this, even after I stopped pushing her to learn things she doesn't want to know."

"Even if you learn that there's nothing to learn? Even if I tell you a tox screen isn't possible anymore?"

"Even then, mate. Then it would be a lack of evidence, not me ignoring the evidence."

"Then I'll look at the file for you when I get a chance. I'll text you what I think."

Eugene puts the chess box and file folder on his desk, hoping the next game slips back to 46 moves.


End file.
